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Divine Intervention

Lent.

A time where you’re supposed to give up something you really really like so that you show God you can make some sacrifices too. “Hey, keep those nails away from me, man, but I’m giving up Cheetos!”

And, during Lent, a good Catholic boy is supposed to abstain from meat on Fridays. Well, this good Catholic boy doesn’t like fish (not meat?) so I’m reduced to bread, breadsticks, rolls, cheese bread, cheese pizza or macaroni & cheese which usually results in the greater part of my day spent bottom or belly down in the local restroom.

So, I cheat. Yeah, I eat a freakin’ hot dog once in awhile on Fridays while SOME “good, abstaining christian men” eat their fish and salads for lunch and then go bang their secretary while their wives are home with their kids.

No. I will not feel guilty for sneaking a piece of bacon on Friday.

Anyway, this particular Friday I had totally forgotten about Lent anyway. Wasn’t even TRYING to cheat. I had saved a pepperoni and cheese calzone from Giant Eagle in anticipation of my stay-at-home-and-work-lunch. I was pretty excited.

I heat up the pepperoni and cheese calzone. I cut the pepperoni and cheese calzone in half. I begin to bite into the pepperoni and cheese calzone, when I’m greeted with a great surprise—NO PEPPERONI & CHEESE!!!

That’s right. God intervened on that day to remove the pepperoni, as if to say, “Dude, I know you are faithful and typically nice to others, but you gotta lay off the meat for me too.” Just wish he could’ve left the cheese.

C’mon, man. Jesus!

An Escape from Fantasy

If you think about it, we live in a very fictitious world. Especially in a place like Ohio where we like to dine at exotic restaurants to make us forget we are in…Columbus, Ohio. Like Cheeseburger in Paradise, for instance. Enter this ambient-overload diner complete with fake palm trees, recorded tunes and syrup-berry margaritas spinning ravenously in a tub full of ice and artificial colors. “Tonight’s special features a soy burger with mango salsa, macadamia nuts with just a hint of rosemary and a side of edamame with humus  dip.” It’s just peas, okay people. Outside, we enjoy the picturesque view of I-270. Ahhh, paradise.

Back to reality, we hop in our cars and swing around the parking lot, while the little “Fresh Laundry” tree swings from the rearview mirror. At home, we light a rainforest-scented Yankee candle, turn on the gas fireplace and nestle up on the pleather recliner with a new fiction novel from James Patterson or Stephen King or John Grisham, perhaps? Tired of reading, we might turn on a sitcom of a fat man with a hot wife or a reality show featuring Brett Michaels sooo head over heals in love (for the 4^th time) that he’s rockin’ yet another installment on cable television for all the world to witness.

After signing up for Fantasy Football on Yahoo and surfing the virtual world that is the WWW-Dot, this hypothetical Friday evening caps off with a little Wii bowling and possibly Rock Band where we receive clamoring from friends like, “You should try out for American Idol!” Finally, 27 text messages later, we climb into bed, turn on the CD player that echoes sounds of ocean waves crashing on the shoreline and dream about clowns riding wolves into the sunset. Okay, that’s just me. But, you get the idea.

For shit’s sake people, I think it’s time we take a vacation! 

Where do you like to visit to escape from fantasy and enter reality?

Gravy

I loved coming home for Thanksgiving dinner, like a squirrel stocking up for a long winter of cafeteria food. After three months of Ramen noodles, I couldn’t wait for the Turkey dinner. Good to get home. Good to get home-cooked meals. I’d imagine this was the last supper before I’d be sent back to the slammer – one filled with an incessant line of students, hairnets and predictable menu items. Yesterday’s meatloaf, meet tomorrow’s lasagna.

I stuffed my trunk and pockets with Tupperware Turkey, aluminum wrapped pumpkin pie, and countless baggies of leftovers. And as I backed out one year, readying myself for the next few months of Sloppy Joes and wondering how I’ll make the 60-mile trek with a food coma, I notice this squirrel. He’s stuffing his trunk and pockets with leftover nuts. So I say to myself, “Self, what separates us from the animals? Have we really evolved that much? Are we any better than the simple mind of the rodent squirrel!?”

Then the front door slams, and my mom yells, “You forgot the gravy, sweetie!” I laugh a sinister laugh to myself, one of those half “Mwuahaha’s” and relax knowing that the Homo sapiens, are in fact, still ahead in the race. Still on top of the food chain. Because I’m pretty sure there’s one thing the squirrels won’t be enjoying this winter: Gravy.

Gravy. It’s what separates us from them.

All Hallows’ Evolution

Halloween has many phases, and the trick-or-treat cycle seems to represent life in general.

EXUBERANCE

When you’re a kid, you live for it. You want the coolest costume and love dressing up. Candy is an amazing perk and the promise of 4 weeks of digging around in your pillow sack for one more Reese’s creates a building giddiness that starts in August. You have a consummate zest for life and the sugar kick just helps add a little zing.

AWKWARDNESS

When you’re a teenager, things get kinda weird. Do I dress up again? Am I too tall? Is 17 years too old? Is it still cool to go as Aquaman or will the football players find out and beat my ass tomorrow? The candy isn’t so much of a big deal but you still crave the thrill of wading through the moonlight in anonymity.

INEBRIATION

College. The candy is replaced with stale kegs, Hairy buff and Cherry bombs. It’s all about being silly stupid and getting drunk. Costumes are big again, but in a different sense. The guys want to make you laugh. The girls want to make you look. The entire holiday (and every holiday for that matter, including the newly popular “National Talk Like a Pirate Day) is just an excuse to get all twisted without your normal clothes on.

INDUCTION

When you graduate and finally get your own place, but you don’t have kids, you can’t help but feel a bit uncomfortable. Is it creepier if the new guy in the neighborhood dresses up and hands out candy or just sits there in jeans and distributes Laffy Taffy? I don’t know? I’m still trying to figure it out. What is certain is that you have once chance to establish yourself as a worthy house to these kids. Decide to save a few bucks and hand out Necco Wafers instead of Starbursts and you’ll be lumped in with the Dentists of the neighborhood.

INFANCY

When you get your first kid, everything changes. You immediately lose any creepiness and you’re back in the game. You get to dress up again without feeling stupid and you get to go trick-or-treating again without getting your ass kicked. Plus, you can snake a few pieces of candy from your kids during the early stages, claiming their “teeth aren’t ready yet.” My Dad tried that for 8 years.

EXIT

After the kids have come and gone, the fun’s over. Your teeth fall out, you can’t hear the doorbell anymore and for some reason you get genuinely upset when kids simply walk through your yard. The trick-or-treating ain’t so sweet anymore and, yup, you have officially gone dark. You’re that house that turns off the lights and locks the doors from 5-9 p.m. or whenever Wheel of Fortune ends. You mumble to yourself about how you had to walk three miles in a homemade costume for a mere slice of apple, but these kids today don’t know wha…